Description

A solar pond is simply a pool of saltwater which collects and stores solar thermal energy. The saltwater naturally forms a vertical salinitygradient also known as a "halocline",
in which low-salinity water floats on top of high-salinity water. The
layers of salt solutions increase in concentration (and therefore
density) with depth. Below a certain depth, the solution has a uniformly
high salt concentration.

There are 3 distinct layers of water in the pond:

The top layer, which has a low salt content.

An intermediate insulating layer with a salt gradient, which
establishes a density gradient that prevents heat exchange by natural convection.

If the water is relatively translucent, and the pond's bottom has high optical absorption, then nearly all of the incident solar radiation (sunlight) will go into heating the bottom layer.

When solar energy is absorbed in the water, its temperature increases, causing thermal expansion and reduced density. If the water were fresh, the low-density warm
water would float to the surface, causing a convection current. The
temperature gradient alone causes a density gradient that decreases with depth. However the salinity gradient forms a density gradient that increases with depth, and this counteracts the temperature gradient, thus
preventing heat in the lower layers from moving upwards by convection
and leaving the pond. This means that the temperature at the bottom of
the pond will rise to over 90 °C while the temperature at the top of the
pond is usually around 30 °C. A natural example of these effects in a
saline water body is Solar Lake in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.

The heat trapped in the salty bottom layer can be used for many
different purposes, such as the heating of buildings or industrial hot
water or to drive an organic Rankine cycle turbine or Stirling engine for generating electricity.